Page 99 - Aldi Lukman Nurhakim_How to Write Critical Esays: A Guide for Students of Literature

98 How to write critical essays
texture. The main mechanism for maintaining this balance is
quotation: your own contemporary English introduces the
reader to verbatim examples of the text’s earlier usages.
However, in some cases where it is not appropriate to use
quotation marks you may still need to reproduce loyally the
text’s own archaic terms. It is no use referring to what a
Restoration comedy calls a ‘serving-woman’ as an ‘au pair’ or a
‘daily’. Texts often use a different vocabulary because they
reflect a different society.

USE SHORT SENTENCES AND STRAIGHTFORWARD SYNTAX
Write shorter sentences wherever you can. A sentence which
you cannot pronounce aloud without pausing for breath is
almost certainly too long. Split it in two (or three). Doing so
will force you to think more precisely about the various points
which your unwieldy construction had tried to combine.
Discriminate between these ideas. Work out exactly how they
are related. Then express them in a rational sequence of far
briefer sentences. Your prose will be at less risk of sounding
clumsy or pompous. More importantly, it will make immediate
sense.
Sometimes, of course, you may discover that a lung-
burstingly protracted sentence has not grown as a result of
having so many ideas to express. Instead, it is making only one
point, but at inordinate length. Then prune accordingly.
Sentences have various purposes. However, each sentence
can only be asked to perform one main task if it is to do it well.
Ask yourself what each of your sentences means to achieve. If it
seems to have more than one function, be suspicious. Consider
dividing it into shorter statements.
Here are three of the many tasks that a sentence might be
performing. It could be an assertion about how a text (or
some part of a text) should be interpreted. It could be a
description of what kind of literature or literary device can be
recognized in a text. It could be a judgement on how
successful a text is. A single sentence can hardly ever contain
interpretative, descriptive and evaluative thoughts without
muddling them: